“Lemongrass, purple acorns, and colberries. I’m sure the deer and those little guys will love this stuff if I mix it into their food,” Ares mused his thoughts aloud. Ares had tried to learn alchemy but could never quite get the hang of it. He was also terrible at remembering the name of ingredients and their qualities but, for some strange reason, when it came to cooking ingredients, he never had that issue. The only alchemy ingredients he could ever remember were the ones that could also be used to make food with.


    “Oh look, we’ve found ourselves a hippy trying to feed his furry friends in the forest,” a strange voice came from behind Ares. “Hand over the stuff you just picked, and we’ll be on our way.”


    Ares turned around and saw a female merchant being followed around by four axe wielding men. “Hm? Strange. I’ve been called a number of things before, but hippy is definitely a new one for the list. I’m not giving you anything but, if you wanna keep looking for trouble, I’ll oblige.”


    “It’s a simple process, kid. Hand over your stuff, and no-one gets hurt.”


    “Or what? I don’t hand it over and you guys get hurt? You should really specify. Also, are you really that desperate? None of this stuff is exactly rare, you know? You could find this your-damn-self. I’m honestly surprised you somehow haven’t run into someone willing to teach you fools a lesson yet.”


    “Get ‘em b?oys,” The woman gave a rising intonation at the word ‘boys’, and patted one of her guards on the ass as he ran by.


    “You guys aren’t just clowns, you''re the whole damn circus.” Ares just shook his head and sighed.


    The woman’s cultivation was pitiful to the point that she didn’t warrant sparing any more attention than the bare minimum. If she tried using a treasure or a ranged weapon, Ares would be aware of it but, other than that, she was basically just a bystander.


    The four axe wielders had cultivation bases at around the 7th and 8th stages of the 4th cultivation realm which, although certainly higher than Ares, was not even remotely enough to handle him. This fight would only be marginally harder than his previous scuffle with the deer which, honestly, wasn’t saying much.


    “Embodiment!”


    The closest guy to Ares jumped and raised his axe overhead, creating a large projection of the axe he was wielding behind him. Embodiment was an art of the forgery pillar’s ‘Artisan Of War’ aspect. It would create a blunt, ethereal copy of the user’s weapon that would follow the user’s movements, adding a heavy, but typically nonlethal, follow-up attack.


    Ares simply stood and waited, completely unfazed. The embodiment would essentially repeat attacks, and it''s not exactly like this guy was swinging his axe like a professional. If the first attack is easy to stop, then the embodiment will be just as simple to deal with. As the man drew closer, Ares raised a single hand and began swinging it in a horizontal arc.


    Slap


    The guy who had previously leapt at Ares landed and just stood still as though he had been frozen over. He had not expected his axe to be slapped out of his hand mid swing.


    Rather than take the swing head on, Ares had aimed for the flat side of the axe and swatted it away with pretty minimal effort.


    Of course, he still had to deal with the embodiment, but he had other plans for that. This time, Ares decided to dodge the swing by ducking under it and moving closer to the handle, which he then grabbed.


    Unfortunately for the guy who was still forlorn over the loss of his axe, embodiments could be stolen and wielded by other people if you weren’t careful.


    Ares gripped the handle tightly and swung for the fences. The axe connected with the guy’s stomach region and even Ares recoiled slightly at the loud crunching sound that was indicative of a ruined ribcage. Ares had also let go of the ethereal axe after he completed his swing so it went spinning off into the woods with the guy still attached to the end of it.


    Homerun!


    Ares felt a sudden change in the air behind him so he ducked just in time to avoid another axe that someone had hurled at the back of his head. He was about to stand back up when he realised that a runic pattern had lit up on the axe and it was now returning in his direction like some kind of incredibly sharp boomerang. Ares jumped over it and turned around to see one of the three other men catching the axe, and another charging at him.


    The man charging made a sudden stop around 10ft from Ares and threw his axe straight down, planting it into the earth.


    “Lightning Rod!”


    The man slammed his foot down on the axe and raised his arms to the heavens. The sky momentarily darkened before spitting out a brief flash of lightning that arced straight down towards the man. It hit him square on and caused him to spasm uncontrollably as the lightning wrapped around his figure. Eventually, he stopped shaking and began charging at Ares again, this time with a layer of lightning cloaking his body.


    Lightning Rod was an art of the ‘Amp’ aspect that made fighting hand to hand against the user a real pain in the neck. Physical contact would repeatedly jolt the other person while softening external blows the user would receive. Even being near them would cause static shocks across your whole body.


    Ares, once again, stood completely motionless. This was actually a great chance to test out one of the runic patterns on his Zephyr. The Stygian Zephyr was a treasure that effectively functioned like a Swiss army knife. It didn’t do any one thing particularly well, but it certainly did a hell of a lot of different things at an acceptable level. One such use was the grounding function that could nullify electrical surges, lightning, thunder and so on and so forth. Granted, it required the Zephyr to dig into the earth, making it hard to keep mobile while using it, but it was still another useful tool in this thing''s borderline inexhaustible arsenal. After the zephyr unfurled, the two ends straightened and dug into the ground while one of the many patterns near the tip of the cape lit up in gold.


    Ares spun his shoulder and then threw out a normal punch. The punch was the very definition of lazy, but the force behind it was tricky to gauge. Although it looked simple, the real danger was the Echo Ares had generated by moving his shoulder. The man was already far too late to stop his own punch, so the two fists collided. Ares felt a weird tingling sensation run all along his body. It went over his eyes, up his nose, and it even rolled past his tongue, leaving a taste that was oddly reminiscent of the lemongrass he had just harvested. The lightning trailed over his shoulder and then down the Zephyr and became stuck inside it, bouncing repeatedly between the earth and Ares.


    The man who had attacked him wasn’t having quite the same experience. His kidney took the brunt of the Echo and, even though Ares had intentionally lowered the output, it still exploded the moment the two came into contact. All the bones in his arm that collided with Ares’ fist were shattered and the Echo managed to rattle its way into his skull, leaving him with a concussion that made him feel like his head was splitting in two. The Echo then worked its way back down into his stomach before detonating one final time, which sent the man flying off in the same direction as Ares’ previous attacker.


    Two down, two to go. Well, not that one of them was going to last much longer after the mistake he just made. The boomerang-axe guy had attempted to catch Ares off-guard when he was distracted with the other attacker by tossing his axe again. What the boomerang-guy didn’t know was that, even now, Ares was still paying attention to even the merchant lady in the back, let alone the four horsemen of the axe-pocalypse. They were never going to catch Ares, of all people, not paying attention.


    Ares had hoped this would happen as it meant he now got to try the second half of this runic trick of his Zephyr. What’s a good catch, without an equally good release? Speaking of catching things, Ares focused hard, and caught the thrown axe like he was catching a sword. Ares had always wanted to try catching a sword but never had the chance. He had seen it once in a street-performance and was determined to give it a go at some point. He didn’t count that one time in the entrance exam as that ‘fight’ was far too easy and didn’t give him the thrill he was seeking. This would be good practice for the future if he ever stupidly decided to try his luck mid-fight.


    The restricted lightning, still bouncing around in the Zephyr, was channelled back into the freshly caught axe which was trying to wiggle itself free and return to its owner. The man who threw the axe had an epiphany as it dawned on him exactly what was about to happen. He knew it would be to no avail, but he started running anyway as it was better to at least try than to just accept his fate.


    Stolen story; please report.


    Ares released the newly lightning-infused axe and it shot off towards the fleeing man at a speed that even Ares would have trouble keeping up with.


    Sure enough, eventually, the man’s mistakes caught up with him and the axe came bearing down on the back of his leg. The axe spun continually until it eventually tore into his calf. The axe was travelling far faster than the man and kept its momentum even after it cut into his leg, sweeping him off his feet, flipping him upside down, and dragging him off to go land in the same pile of bodies as Ares'' other two attackers. It didn’t end there though. The axe was still harbouring a shocking surprise that discharged itself amongst the clumped-up bodies, creating what could only be described as a spectacular light show of agony and pain.


    A rather unpleasant burning and charred flesh kind of smell wafted over and made Ares feel both a little nauseous and a bit guilty. Not because he had been too harsh on them, but because any animals in the immediate area were going to have to put up with that awful stench for a couple of hours at least.


    And then there was one! Or, well, technically two as the merchant woman was still here and Ares wasn’t going to let her go unpunished. Ares believed in equal rights for both genders just about as much as he believed in equal treatment, which is to say he wholeheartedly supported both notions. He wasn’t sure what he was going to do to her just yet, but he was definitely going to do something.


    Ares could kinda sorta guess what was up with the last axe wielder. He was probably the kind of cultivator whose magic gave him some kind of unpredictable movement. As for how Ares knew, it was because the axe guy hadn’t done anything up until now and that was because he couldn’t. If he had, he would''ve gotten in the way of the boomerang-axe guy.


    Imagine trying to use a ranged weapon when one of your allies could just randomly pop up in your line of fire at any given moment. Not fun. This line of reasoning wasn’t guaranteed to be accurate, but it was likely at least somewhat close to the truth, and even having a small inkling could help give an edge in a fight or prevent the opponent from gaining one. Not that Ares needed any help here of course, but it was good practice to keep his mind active and thinking about these things at all times.


    “Murk ‘N’ Lurk!”


    Murk ‘N’ Lurk? Ares'' mind started working at a hundred miles a minute to try and figure out what this unique art was going to do.


    The last axe-wielder began a swinging motion which jerked Ares back into reality from his thoughts. As the axe descended, the space it passed through became an inky black fog that looked almost viscous. From the axe, a stream of fog gushed out and shot towards Ares.


    The black fog was actually quite slow in comparison to the boomerang from earlier, and it didn’t look particularly deadly either which just put Ares on high alert. Was this guy really just another range-focused cultivator? But then why didn’t he attack alongside the boomerang guy earlier? There has to be more to the art. It was as soon as that idea popped into Ares'' head that he noticed something odd about the fog, not only did it not disappear, he couldn’t see through it at all. The fog was completely opaque. Although that certainly would have hindered the boomerang guy, he still felt like there was even more to this art. Between the axe-wielder’s presence abruptly disappearing, and the inclusion of the word ‘Lurk’ in the name of the art, Ares finally figured it out.


    Murk ‘N Lurk was a unique art that combined the darkness pillar’s ‘shadow’ aspect and its ‘tangible dark’ aspect. The shadow aspect typically focused on manipulating a person’s position using shadows, whereas the tangible dark was for attacking and defending. This unique art used tangible dark to create lingering fog shadows which the user could then move to instantaneously via the shadow aspect, as opposed to having to use pre-existing shadows. That was why he couldn’t act earlier, not only did he obscure vision, but he was hiding somewhere in the thing that was obscuring vision too. It was completely unpredictable.


    Ares kept his wits about him and managed to dodge an axe attack that came completely out of left field from within the fog. The axe swing had also flung out even more fog that then allowed the axe wielder to jump around again. It was a never-ending cycle in which the amount of space the axe-wielder had to play around in just kept getting bigger and bigger while the space Ares had to dodge in kept getting smaller and smaller. The black mist had formed a circle around Ares and was slowly but surely encroaching upon his limited space.


    Trying to run through the fog would just result in the axe-wielder inevitably ambushing you repeatedly as you got lost and ran around in circles. Standing your ground would eventually become impossible, and the axe-wielder was basically untouchable if he hid within the fog. This was really quite a strong unique art. In fact, it was probably the strongest art Ares had ever seen, barring his own of course. But therein lies the issue for Mr Axe Man, Ares’ arts didn’t particularly care much for people who tried hiding from them. They sort of just worked as long as he pointed them in the general direction of the thing he wanted to remove from existance.


    Given Ares'' speed, he could have just run through the fog in a straight line without ever letting the man catch him. He could have also Shifted away, but those actions would have hurt his pride. Another way out was to just retaliate quickly enough after one of the man’s sneak attacks, but that would have been boring. Besides, Ares had yet to blow anything up, other than that one guy’s kidney mind you. Ares pulled out a few Shock Beads from his space ring and nonchalantly littered them around himself like he was throwing out bird seed. He also walked over to different parts of the fog and tossed some inside as well for good measure. This was more than enough to kill the man if he wasn’t quick enough to react to what was about to happen to him, but that was his problem. Ares couldn’t care less if he died or not. Ares hadn’t planned on killing them as it felt unnecessary and a tad excessive for a few thieving clowns, but that didn’t mean he would mourn them should he accidentally off one or two.


    Boooooooooooooommmmmmmmmmmmm


    What was once an area covered in a murky black fog became an area surrounded entirely in a dark golden series of semi-circular explosions. Within seconds, the area the axe wielder had murked was now hazed in a swirling golden hue. That same golden swirl grew in size and drowned the forest in its regal splendour.


    Ares simply watched his handiwork fade away from a nearby tree branch, one that conveniently happened to be right above the merchant lady, as the axe-wielder was blown up and straight over into the pile of his axe-wielding brethren’s bodies. The last axe-wielder was down for the count, and missing both a finger and a toe but, hey, it could have been a lot worse. These people decided to try and steal from a monster who was already not in the greatest of moods, after all.


    The merchant lady couldn’t move her legs out of pure fear and was glued to the spot. Her panic left her in such a sorry state that the beat of her heart was actually causing an abnormal pain in her chest and she was choking for air.


    Ares decided on her punishment and hung upside down from the tree in a similar fashion to when he had dropped in on Enyo. He had done this behind the woman, though, and she was still unaware that he was there.


    The merchant managed to steel her resolve to the point that she could move, and she turned around to run away, only to be greeted by her worst nightmare; Ares at eye height staring into her soul.


    “BOO!” Ares yelled as loud and violently as he could while jutting out his hand as he grabbed her face. He wasn’t actually going to hurt her as her cultivation base was so pathetic he might accidentally seriously injure her, but he wanted to really drive home that feeling of fear. He immediately released her and checked her face to see how she was doing, only for her to fall flat as soon as he let go. She had fainted the second Ares’ hand blacked out her vision.


    Ares felt like there was still somewhat of a discrepancy between what her henchmen had been through in comparison to her, but he couldn’t think of any other way to punish her minus stealing all her stuff, but he was going to do that anyway. He had briefly considered removing her clothes and tying her up to try and curb her excessive pride, but if some ill-intentioned individual in the area happened to have their way with her, he would feel somewhat responsible. Ultimately, he just decided to throw her into the pile of bodies. At least this way the smell of melted flesh would seep into her clothes and give her something to remember this occasion by. He also made sure to bury her a bit deeper, both because she deserved it, and to prevent any untoward individuals spotting an unconscious woman amongst a pile of men and getting the wrong idea.


    Something about adopting Appa and having a daughter now made Ares that much more aware and responsible in regards to women’s plights. It would be hypocritical for him to say he doesn’t want anything to happen to his sweet little daughter and then half-ass things when it came to other people because he didn’t care. Of course, there may be women out there who are just irredeemable, at which point Ares wouldn’t give a damn, but this merchant was literally harmless. She couldn’t hurt Ares even if he stood still and let her try. Also, she didn’t seem like she was out to take lives, so he decided to show some leniency. All in all, no death needed dealing, so Ares just took their stuff and went on his merry way. Merry primarily because he had obtained a fair few cooking ingredients without the need to go and procure them himself. Now all he needed to do was kill an animal (not a cute one), or a monster or two, and take the meat back to his forest friends to enjoy a nice meal. But first, he still needed to find out what exactly that thing calling to him was.


    ---------------------------------


    “Are you sure you’re ok?” Enyo turned her head in Aejaz’s direction to see him limping along.


    “Hm? Oh, yeah, no, I’ve never been better.” Ares let out a smile and started to laugh before he immediately stopped as it made the pain come back full force.


    “I’m sorry. And after everything you did for me too,” Allie looked a little guilty and was speaking a tad bit quieter than usual.


    “Really, it’s fine, you don’t have to apologise.”


    “No, I should. I''m also sorry for Strength not apologising, he can be quite proud and egotistical, so I’ll say it on his behalf.”


    “Hey, there’s really no need to feel guilty. If it weren’t for your healing pills, I’d still be in a miserable state. I should be saying thank you!”


    Allie smiled a bit as Aejaz managed to cheer her up. This, in turn, naturally made Aejaz ecstatic, and he came to the twisted conclusion that getting hit by that art was utterly worth it.


    “Hm, it looks like our friends from earlier picked a losing battle,” Enyo grabbed the other’s attention and pointed to a pile of groaning, steaming flesh with traces of lightning sparking and crackling away here and there.


    It had been long enough since their beating that they had managed to recuperate somewhat and were now falling off one another while moaning in pain. It was quite a spectacle to watch the four disfigured axe-men trying to stand. One had an axe in his calf, one was missing a toe and a finger, one had his chest caved in, and the other had a limp, dangling, broken arm. It was pretty clear these people had been defeated one-sidedly.


    “Ugh, that BASTARD! Who does he think he is? And who the fuck goes around dangling from a tree like that just to mess with people. God DAMN it!” The merchant lady had woken up, with the pain in her chest still present, and kicked a rock whilst complaining.


    “Dangling from a tree?” That sentence struck a chord with Enyo who had encountered something similar a while back. “Hey! You!”


    “Who the hell are… Oh! fucking fantastic! What do you people want? Your silver rabbit weed? Well too bad. In an ironic twist of fate, we’ve been robbed! If you want it back, you’re going to have to go fight that damn lunatic. Honestly? He’s not worth messing with, so don’t bother and just accept your loss.”


    “Silver rabbit weed? Tsk, I don’t care about that. The person who robbed you, quick on his feet? A runic cape on his back? An insufferable tongue? Any of that ring a bell?”


    “Quick on his feet? Fuck knows, he practically stood still the entire damn fight. But a runic cape and an insufferable tongue? That sounds about right, I wanted to cut both off by the time he was done with us. Why? You know him? You lot in cahoots? You gonna tell him to come back and rob the clothes off our backs too for good measure? Fuck off. We’ve got our own shit to deal with here.”


    One of the four men tripped and fell into a nearby puddle.


    “Ares really does leave quite the noticeable trail wherever he goes.” Aejaz scratched his chin.


    Enyo glanced around at the destruction that had taken its toll on the immediate area. “You don’t say. At least he didn’t kill anyone. Maybe he has a guilty conscience after all?”


    “How does he manage to make a mess as easily as he does? He always seems to have an oversized explosion up his sleeve, right? Where does he even get them all?” Allie tilted her head and looked over at Aejaz.


    “Hm?  Oh, right, he never did explain his pillar, did he?”


    “No, your explanation was interrupted during the festival by an explosion, and his explanation was interrupted when he decided to kill those two from before,” Enyo reported back the specifics of both occasions.


    “Ah, well, you see, his magic is kinda unique.”